Room 13

‘I beseech you, in the

bowels of Christ, think it

possible you maybe

mistaken.’

The author at the pond of
Auschwitz prison camp.

It is said that science will dehumanise people and turn them
into numbers.

That is false, tragically false.

Look for yourself.

This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz.

This is where people were turned into numbers.

Into this

pond

were flushed

the ashes

of some four million people.

And that was not done by gas.

It was done by arrogance.

It was done by dogma.

It was done by ignorance.

When people believe that they have

absolute knowledge,

with no test in reality, this is how they

behave.

This is what men do when they

aspire to the knowledge

of gods.

Science is a very

human form of knowledge.

We are always

at

the brink of

the known, we always

feel forward for what is to be

hoped.

Every

judgment

in science stands on the

edge of error,

and

is personal.

Science

is

a tribute to what we can know although we

are fallible.

In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell:

‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may
be mistaken’.

I owe it

as a scientist

to my friend Leo Szilard,

I owe it as a

human being to the many members of my family who died at

Auschwitz, to stand here by the pond as a survivor and a

witness.

We have to

cure ourselves of

the itch for absolute knowledge

and

power.

We have to close the distance between the push-button

order

and

the human act.

We

have

to

touch

people.